1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to a cable connector, and more particularly to a safety Serial ATA (Advanced Technology Attachment) cable plug connector.
2. Description of Related Art
It is expected that Serial ATA, which is featured in lower voltage and lower pin count, will eventually completely replace today's parallel ATA. According to the Serial ATA standard, a Serial ATA device, generally disk drives and storage peripherals, may be connected to a host through a cable. For connection via cable, a device plug connector mates with a cable receptacle connector at one end of the cable. A second cable receptacle connector at the other end of the cable is adapted for mating with a host plug connector, so that an electrical connection is established between the Serial ATA device and the host. The Serial ATA standard does not specify a cable plug connector. However, in some situations, a Serial ATA cable plug connector may be desired. Therefore, there exists a need to develop a Serial ATA cable plug connector.
According to the Serial ATA standard, a standard Serial ATA power plug connector comprises an exposed L-shaped tongue with power contacts disposed thereon for being inserted into a corresponding L-shaped receiving slot of a standard Serial ATA cable receptacle connector. When applying a Serial ATA power cable plug connector, there is some danger that the hand of the user which holds the cable plug connector while pulling may accidentally touch a power contact while the latter is still in contact with a live complementary receptacle. Furthermore, the provision of the exposed L-shaped tongue may cause damage to the power contacts disposed thereon. Therefore, a safety Serial ATA power cable plug connector is desired.
Further, the Serial ATA standard does not specify the termination method for a Serial ATA cable connector. It is well known that there are several conventional methods, such as soldering, crimping, IDC (Insulation Displacement Connection) etc., for terminating a cable to contacts of an electrical connector. U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,402,552 and 6,616,477 each disclose a Serial ATA cable receptacle connector having its cable wires terminated to corresponding tail portions of contacts by soldering. However, this method is laborious and time-consuming. U.S. Pat. Publication No. 20030060087 discloses a Serial ATA cable receptacle connector having its cable wires terminated to corresponding tail portions of contacts by crimping. However, this method complicates the design and manufacturing of the contacts. In comparison with the soldering and crimping methods, the IDC method allows rapid and simple connection of conducting wires to contacts without stripping nor crimping the wires. Therefore, it is also desired to develop a Serial ATA cable connector using IDC technology.
Hence, a safety Serial ATA IDC power cable plug connector is needed to address the problems encountered in the related art.